Winner, Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, 2006 – My Sept. 8, 2005, investigative story, "AP Exclusive: Sept. 11 recovery loans went to many who didn’t need them", and subsequent follow-ups won the 2006 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, business journalism’s highest honor, in the news services or online content category.
The investigative project examined government loans that were meant to help businesses in New York City following the 2001 terrorist attacks but found that much of the financing went to companies nationwide. The businesses, ranging from a pet boutique in Utah to a gun dealer in Guam, were given loans from the Supplemental Terrorism Activity Relief program, and many of the businesses did not even know that their loans were related to 9/11.
The project also won the the 2006 Associated Press Managing Editors Enterprise Award, was a finalist for a 2006 Online Journalism Award from ONA and was one of the AP’s Pulitzer Prize entries for that year.
I am also honored to have the project included in in the book Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything Else on
pages 102-103.
You can read about how we broke the story in this cover story for the January/February 2006 issue of IRE Journal, an Investigative Reporters and Editors publication.
After the October 2008 stock market crash, The Associated Press embarked on a project that sought to explain some aspect of the economic crisis each day in terms the average reader could understand. The “Meltdown 101” series included more than 70 stories written by AP reporters with expertise in the subject matter being addressed that day. My Nov. 12, 2008, installment, "Meltdown 101: The economy and alternative energy," was one of the story entries that helped the project win a 2008 Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
In 2008, the South Dakota Corn Growers Association presented me with the organization’s Excellence in Public Outreach Award for my coverage of agriculture and the alternative energy industry.